


Bubblegum

by hereforthehurts



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amity Blight/Luz Noceda Angst, Angst, Autistic Luz Noceda, Beta Concept Art Amity Blight/Beta Concept Art Luz Noceda, Camila is trying to be a good parent, F/F, Heartache, Hurt/Comfort, Long Shot, Long-Distance Relationship, Luz Noceda Needs Therapy, Luz Noceda has ADHD, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Separations, Single Parents, Songfic, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29533107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereforthehurts/pseuds/hereforthehurts
Summary: Luz was forced to return back to the human world and gets separated from the Boiling Isles for an indefinite amount of time. Longing, hurting, and an ungodly amount of phone calls  ensues.(And of course, a terrible song that wouldn't stop playing in her head.)____________________“It’ll be okay,” she said.Luz stares out the window, the sunset melting the Californian sky into a mix of pink and orange and blue. She rolls around in her bed lazily, willing the heat in her neck to go away. Willing the sweat to stop rolling out of her body. Willing the longing ache in her heart to stop suffocating her.“We’ll make it work,” she said.(What a lie that was.)
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, Camila Noceda & Luz Noceda
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	1. longing

**Author's Note:**

> I've been in a long distanced relationship with a girl i really loved for almost two years now and wanted to pour my heartache out on something, so here it is. Enjoy !!
> 
> (The title of the song is Bubblegum by Clairo.)

_“It’ll be okay,” she said._

  
  
  


Luz stares out the window, the sunset melting the Californian sky into a mix of pink and orange and blue. She rolls around in her bed lazily, willing the heat in her neck to go away. Willing the sweat to stop rolling out of her body. Willing the longing ache in her heart to stop suffocating her.

  
  
  


_“We’ll make it work,” she said._

  
  
  


(What a lie that was.)

  
  


Amity would be awake soon—she was always an early bird, that girl. It was mostly so that she could talk to her, but Luz didn’t mind it one bit—time zones really are a bitch, especially when they’re a dimension apart. She was learning more and more about the different rules her world has from the Boiling Isles, like the fact that everything that happens in each of their worlds would be complete opposites. If it was day in her world, it would be night in the Isles. If it was sunset in her world, it would be sunrise there. If it was summer here, it would be winter there.

  
  


It’s kind of pathetic that all Luz feels about those rules was that it only adds to their misery.

  
  
  


  
  


She’s staring at her phone screen, now, waiting for Amity’s status to go online. Waiting when she could hear her sweet voice in her ears again and pretend that she was really there with her. Beside her, in her bed. Her fingers laced with hers, her thumb tracing lightly on her palm. _Maybe then,_ Luz thought, _her summer wouldn’t feel so lonely anymore._

  
  


Sharp pain clogs her chest, the kind that she knew would push the tears out of her. She doesn’t know why she kept crying, these days. Why she’s always so sad and tired and hopeless all the time.

  
  
  
  


It probably has everything to do with the certain mint-haired girl who lived in her head rent free.

  
  
  


Even her mother hadn’t bothered to get her out of her misery—Luz knows that she knows. Camila always knows. Not the exact truth, no, but she knew that something in that summer changed had changed her daughter for good.

  
  


(And it did. Luz just doesn’t know if it was for good or not.)

  
  


  
  


She checks on her phone again—Amity was online. She considered texting first for a moment, considering saying _hi, good morning, how was your sleep?—_ but it was all bullshit. They couldn’t even talk properly anymore, now. Their phone calls were almost always filled with excruciatingly painful silence and a lot of breathing, just… a lot of nothingness, these days. It hurts, all of it. The missing and the longing and the _not knowing._ It drives her crazy.

  
  
  


_I can’t see you,_ Luz kept saying, in her head. _When I close my eyes, I can’t imagine you in my head anymore. I lost it, the image of you, except from the one I had when we were fourteen. I can’t see you. I can’t see you here with me anymore._

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Californian palm trees sways in the distance, and Luz sobs.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


She places her arm over her eyes and sobs into it, the tears falling back down to her cheeks.

It’s scary. It’s scary how she kept staying in bed because she doesn’t want to move on from her, doesn’t want to leave Amity as an obscure memory she’s going to push away to the back of her head and eventually forget. Luz holds on to the only picture she has of her at night and wills herself to keep seeing her in her mind, clinging onto her image as if her life depended on it.

  
  
  
  


_I miss you, I miss you so much that it’s killing me._

  
  
  
  


But Amity probably already knew that. She probably feels the same way right now—the same longing and aching and hurting. Maybe.

  
  
  
  
  
  


_Amity is typing…_

  
  
  


Luz’s fingers hovers over her keyboard. _What should I say to her? What else is there to say?_

  
  
  


She looks out the window and watches the suburban houses swallow the sun whole as the sky turns into a beautiful shade of pink.

  
  
  


_You’re sticking on my mind like a piece of bubblegum._

  
  
  


Luz regrets it the very second she hits the send button. A stupid text. A stupid line. The _read_ notification gives her anxiety, even more when Amity stops typing after. Luz swallows thickly and switches off her phone, staring at her worn-out popcorn ceiling for a while and wondered where all her glow-in-the-dark stars went.

  
  
  
  


_Ping!_

  
  
  


Luz gathers all the courage inside her to read Amity’s reply.

  
  
  
  


_Good. Don’t get it off._

  
  


She tries to laugh the tension in her chest away. _Call later?_

  
  


_Sure. Let me get in the shower first._

  
  


_Okay._

  
  


  
  


She tries to find a song to listen to while she waited for Amity to come back from her shower. Something slow. Something sad. But also… something hopeful.

  
  
  


Maybe.

  
  
  


Luz lets her Spotify decide on her fate.

  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  


_(Bubblegum down my throat and it’s a curse_

_But my luck couldn’t get any worse…)_

  
  
  



	2. lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heartache gets her lost. Amity leads her back home.

Luz isn’t sure how long she’s been walking.

  
  
  
  


All she knew was that the sun had been setting when she first got out of the house, finally pulling herself away from the black hole that is her room. Away from Amity, away from sinking deep into her thoughts that would eventually only lead her to more pain.

Her mother had been in the kitchen the time she stumbled out of her room, messy hair and days-old shirt and all. She doesn’t give her sarcastic remarks, doesn’t give her _the look_ —she just… stared at her softly, the kind of motherly stare Eda used to give her whenever the woman looked at her.

  
  
  


Luz looks away.

  
  
  
  


“Going somewhere?” Camila asks, her voice as soft as her gaze on her.

“Yeah,” Luz just answers. “A walk, or something… I’ll be right back.”

“Bring your jacket with you,” She suggests. “It’ll get cold soon.”

“It’s summer.”

“Yeah,” her mother agrees gently, “it is summer.”

  
  
  
  
  


And summer is killing her. The heat, the crying, the missing—it’s all killing her. She knew she _had_ to leave her bed when she finds herself coming back from her daydreams to an overheated phone and the song _Bubblegum_ playing on repeat for god knows how many hours.

So Luz left and walked out. She walked through the streets of the Oakland suburbs, through bustling neighborhoods and empty streetlights. She walked and walked until her heels ached, until the sun set over the horizon, replaced by the moon.

And still then, she kept walking. Willing herself to get lost, as lost as she is inside.

  
  
  
  
  
  


_Sorry I didn’t kiss you_

  
  


Luz lets herself melt into the tunes of the song, the soft guitar that accompanies the hurting lyrics. She thinks about what those words meant to her.

  
  


_But it’s obvious I wanted to_

  
  


See; the thing about songs is that they can delve so deep into you and pull out things that you didn’t even know you had. And Luz knows there’s something inside her that song is trying to bring out. A forgotten memory. Something she’s pushed so hard inside that even she had forgotten what it was in the first place.

  
  


_Bubblegum in my throat and it’s a curse_

  
  


And it does feel like there’s bubble gum inside her throat—suffocating her, choking her. It’s been there ever since she left the Boiling Isles, ever since she left Eda, left her friends, left Amity. _A bubblegum made out of pain and longing._ How fucked up is that?

  
  


_But my luck couldn’t get any worse._

  
  
  
  
  


Luz approached a nearby concrete wall and sat down. She needed it. She desperately needed a grip on something. She also needed that song to _stop fucking playing._

Her shaking hands scramble to turn on her phone and press the pause button—instead, she choked at the glowing numbers on her phone that reads, _11:45._

  
  
  
  


_Had it really been that long…?_

  
  
  


There’s more.

Twenty-three miscalls from her mother. Hundreds of texts from her saying, _Mija, come home soon, it’s getting dark,_ to _Luz, please tell me where you are right now and get home,_ to _I’m sorry, Mija I’m so sorry, I know you’re upset, please just don’t disappear like this, we can talk it out, please reply to me,_ to _Luz I’m calling the police I swear to god—_

  
  


Luz shuts down her phone with a single click and throws her head back.

_God._

What would she even say to her?

  
  
  


_I’m lost, mom. I’m lost and I don’t know what I should do. I don’t know if I’d ever find myself again._

  
  
  


She calls Amity instead.

  
  
  
  
  


It took her a few tries—she must be in class. But it was okay. Luz could wait. She could wait forever if she has to.

(If she doesn’t die trying.)

She looks up from her screen and watches the yellow street lights flicker from across the streets, the dots of lights from the tall city buildings in the distance. She doesn’t know where she is, doesn’t know where she’s going to go next—but she wasn’t scared. It’s easier to get lost in her head than in California.

_How did she get here?_

  
  
  
  


She doesn’t know. She really doesn’t.

  
  


  
  


Her phone vibrates.

  
  


“Luz?” Her voice floods her ears when she swipes up on the green button. “Luz, I was just out of class—what time is it there?”

Luz swallowed thickly. 

“Luz?”

“I—” She took deeper breaths. “Hey.”

“Why are you calling…?” Amity asks—her voice was rather worried than annoyed. “It’s so late over there. Why aren’t you sleeping right now?”

Silence fills in their call.

“Luz?”

Lights flicker in the distance.

“Luz, answer me.”

“I don’t—” she breathes. “I can’t.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” There’s some shuffling, and the background noises became quieter. Her voice was soft when she spoke up again. “It’s… it’s okay. We can talk, until you can fall asleep.”

“Actually, I, um… I’m not in bed right now. I…” Luz looks around, “I don’t know where I am, actually.”

“What?” Amity’s voice becomes alert almost immediately. “What do you mean you’re—are you _lost?”_

“No, just…” Luz shakes her head and almost laughs at how ridiculous the whole situation was. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I won’t, just—why are you lost? What happened?”

“It’s… it’s complicated.”

“Come on, Noceda. Don’t give me this,” she sighs in frustration. “I’m worried. I really, _really_ am.”

“I’m sorry.” Luz rubs her eyes tiredly. “I’m just… I’ve been really messy, lately.”

“I know,” her voice softens, the kind of voice Luz doubts anyone has ever heard come out of her before. “Go home, Luz. We can talk while you walk home.”

“So you’re walking me home?” Something lights up inside of her.

Amity chuckles. “Yeah, kind of.”

“Okay. Just… let me set up my map.”

“Your map?” Amity asks. “Do humans just carry a map of the whole world everywhere?”

“I… no,” Luz’s eyes widen in amusement when she realizes that Amity had little to no knowledge on how her world works. “It’s like… how far technology in the Boiling Isles is again?”

“Not enough to be carrying a map of the whole world, I don’t think.”

“Oh. Okay, so,” Luz giggles, “there’s this thing called… google.”

“Google,” Amity repeats.

“Yeah. They’re sort of like, um, the thing that knows every single thing in this world. Well, _almost,_ anyway. The humans made it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I—it’s complicated, alright?” Luz laughs, and it felt like her whole body was shaking. _She hasn’t had this in a while._ “It’s better if you can come and see for yourself.”

“To California?”

“Yeah,” She shrugs. “God, Amity, you’d love California. Well—Oakland, specifically.”

“Oh?” Luz could feel her smile from a world away. “Why do you think I would?”

“Well. Oakland is… pretty. It’s not perfect, but it’s still pretty.” She looks back towards the city skyline for a moment. It glitters like a cluster of a thousand fireflies in the distance. “In the city, downtown, there’s like this really big bridge, and it looks amazing when the sun sets.”

“Tell me more.”

“Okay. Um. There’s this really nice taco place my mom and I go to all the time,” Luz suggests, “and we can go to Chinatown on Saturdays, and picnic on Merritt Lake, and—” she took a shaky breath and stopped.

  
  


Images flash in her head—images of Amity holding her hand while they strolled around on a warm afternoon, getting tacos, talking and laughing. Images of them taking a bus downtown, to Merritt Lake, images of them sharing ice cream cones and running barefoot on the sand, whooping and yelling while they splashed around in the gleaming water.

  
  
  
  


The bubblegum on her throat hardens.

  
  


“Luz?” Amity calls softly.

“I…” Luz shakes her head and tries to keep herself together. “I’m sorry. I—”

“Hey. Stop that.”

She breathes.

“Are you home?”

“I’m… I’m getting there.”

“Good. Keep walking.”

  
  
  


She does.

  
  
  


“Is this… why you haven’t been sleeping lately?” Amity asks again, after a while. “Because you keep taking midnight strolls?”

“Well… no.”

“Then why can’t you?”

“I don’t know.” Luz sighs. “I just… kept thinking.”

“Thinking?”

“Yeah.”

“About what?”

“You.”

  
  
  


More silence. Her shoes scrape against the concrete sidewalk.

  
  
  


“My mom’s… I think she’s angry at me, for getting myself lost.” Luz speaks up.

“Well, I would too,” Amity laughs softly. “Text her.”

“I’m scared to. Spanish moms are a whole different breed.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that from you a lot. I think it’s nice,” she says. “They’re… fierce, but they love you fiercely too, I think. I’ve never had that before.”

“My mom would love you.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yeah,” Luz smiles, “I mean, you’re all straight hair, straight A’s, just… straight forward. She’d _adore_ you.”

“Have you ever…” She hears Amity shifts in her place, “talked to her about me?”

“No,” Luz shrugs. “I don’t… I’ve never really told her about what happened that summer, you know. I’ve—to be honest, I haven’t been talking to her much at all.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Well, I think you should.”

“Of course you do.”

“No, I meant—Luz, she loves you. I know it enough from the way you talked to me about her, all those times ago. She loves you more than you know it,” Amity says softly. “Look, I know I’m overstepping, but… if I had a mom like her, I’d talk to her.”

“’Kay,” Luz mutters. “Maybe.”

“Promise me you’d get home and talk to her?”

She felt like a little child. “I will.”

“And _sleep?”_

This time, Luz lets out a laugh. “I will.”

“Good.” Amity clicks her tongue. “I have to go back to class. I’ll call you again soon.”

“Okay.” Luz nods. “Soon.”

“Love you.”

She swallows thickly. “Love you, too.”

  
  


The call ends with a single note.

  
  
  
  


The map says that home was just a few blocks ahead, and the clock on her phone reads _00:20._ Luz turns off the map, sent a simple text to her mother, and rounds herself back to her Spotify.

  
  


  
  


_(‘Cause I swallowed the bubblegum_

_Oh and these seven years would be pretty dumb…)_

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> To be honest idk where i want to go with this, but I'm planning to write more chapters <3


End file.
